"I'll Be Back in an Hour. Are You Boys Sure You Know What You're Doing?"

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Crime and Blandishment

[posted by Callimachus]

Here's a local crime victim who did everything right and still got shot. He was walking with a friend, not alone. Bad boy held him up with a gun and he handed over his wallet. Bad boy went to the car where his get-away driver was behind the wheel. Then, for no good reason, Bad boy turned and shot the kid anyhow.

Now, our state representative here is a good guy but an old-line by-the-book liberal Democrat. How else to explain his baffled reaction to this crime (quoted in a news story I'm forbidden to link to), when talking to a reporter:

“This happened in an area where we have added bike patrols (and) we have a community presence. That’s what is so scary about this particular incident. It was a random act of violence — how can you prepare for that?

One can perhaps think of some ideas if the state rep. can't. But wait. Here's the kicker:

"What we need to discuss today is, do we need added security, or do we need to work on getting someone a job so they’re not out committing crimes?”

Emphasis added.

Well, Mr. state representative, I'm willing to take a job alongside someone who has robbed people on the street with a handgun, if he's served his time and reformed his life and put some years between himself and the crime and cleaned up his addiction problems.

But the guy who robs you, then, while escaping, unprovoked, pumps bullets into you, I would suggest he needs more than a job. Unless the job is standing out on the rockpile in the yard with a sledgehammer, making little ones out of big ones.

Sometimes it takes a village. Sometimes it takes a very, very secure building with high stone walls topped with barbed wire.